Felix Salmon

It's important not to read too much into yesterday's mid-afternoon stock-market wobble.

But in the wake of the news that Germany and France have been talking for months about creating a "core" eurozone with real fiscal union, markets sure as hell didn't go up.

There is no way that the European periphery will go quietly, resigned to their second-tier fate and their third-tier currencies. And without their consent, this idea is going to get very messy, very quickly.